How to Save the World 101
by CatRocks
Summary: Buffy knows that facts. Dawn knows the facts. Now it's time for them to choose what to do about them. And alternate ending for season 5.


**Cat: Hey y'all, this is my first try at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so be nice regarding OOC-related issues. By the way this takes place during "Spiral" and is an alternate ending for season 5. **

**Disclaimer: If I don't own W.i.t.c.h., and I don't own Cardcaptors, and I don't own The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, or Trickster's Queen, why would you think that I own Buffy? **

Dawn looked around her. There were scorch marks on the walls of the gas station and bits of plaster and wood scattered across the floor. Ben was shredding something—possibly Giles' shirt—to use as a bandage for his stab wound. The victim was either sleeping or unconscious, Dawn couldn't tell, though she hopped it was the former. Willow was huddled to the side with Tara, who was crying loudly that it was time. Xander was over trying to help an injured Spike light a cigarette. Dawn was mildly surprised that the cautious Xander didn't mention anything about second hand smoke giving them all cancer, but then decided that Spike might have verbally slaughtered him if he had. Buffy was in the back, Dawn knew, talking to the general.

A warm feeling flushed her as she remembered how earlier Buffy had shouted at him for simply looking at her little sister the wrong way. But when Dawn also recalled how a frantic Buffy had picked her up and run with her to escape Glory, and then later had been ridding in the back of their escape vehicle looking so defeated, tears sprang to her eyes. Her sister had left behind everything just to protect her. No one had ever come close to being that nice to her before.

And everything was messed up. From what the general had said, Glory only wanted to go home. And the knights outside only wanted to save the world. And then the tiny third party, Buffy and the Scoobies, they only wanted to save Dawn. None of them wanted to hurt each other; they just did what they had to to get what they desired. And none of them wanted anything spectacular. Buffy saved the world all the time, and right now Dawn could definitely relate to the feeling of wanting to go home.

There was a crash and Willow, Xander, and Buffy leapt to the front. They arrived just in time to see the two priests step back, their task completed. The protective barrier was down.

"Not good." Xander analyzed.

"Will, can you put up a new one?" Buffy wondered.

Even as they watched the knights closed ranks, drew swords, lowered spears, and hefted axes.

"In the next second and a half, I don't think so." Indeed that was about how much time she had because just then the archers loosed a round of flaming arrows and the three jumped out of the doorway just in time.

"Dawn get down!" Buffy ordered before grabbing the general's sword and running recklessly through the door and into the fray.

"Are we sure that's a good plan!" Xander called after her. He wasn't graced with a response.

"Hey hey!" Spike called, "Wait for me!" And he too jumped out. Anya looked around, shrugged, then grabbed the frying pan she'd reflexively dragged from the wrecked RV.

"Geronimo!" she shouted excitedly and only moments later a deep ringing sound was heard, as though the metal pan had hit a human skull with a great deal of force.

Willow glanced at Xander questioningly, But Tara cried out and Willow instantly rushed to her. The girl was flailing about wildly and it took all of Willow's attention to subdue her. By the time she looked back up, both Xander and Ben were gone. "Don't worry. It's going to be all right." She said softly. Dawn wasn't certain if Willow was talking to her or to Tara, but didn't believe her either way.

There was a scream outside and both Willow's and Dawn's heads instantaneously jerked up. Dawn crawled towards the door, keeping low and moving slowly, and peered around the doorframe.

The sight redefined Dawn's usage of the word "carnage." Bodies were everywhere. Unconscious or dead Dawn didn't know. She saw Ben duck a flying ax as he tried to reach his car. It slammed into the windshield, shattering it, and continued on its path to sink into the back seats with a thud that Dawn could clearly imagine. Looking severely frightened, Ben rushed into his seat and slammed the car into drive without his seatbelt. He went whistling away, running down two knights and nearly hitting three more in the process. A mace tracked after his car, but missed and landed in the dust. Dawn wasn't sure if it had been intentionally thrown at the fleeing doctor or if it had been wildly discarded by her older sister. After all, Buffy did have a habit of tossing valuable weapons to the side or kicking them from her enemies without thought to where they might land.

Turning her attention away she scanned quickly for her sister. She didn't see her, but did see an ever growing knot of knights, and assumed that Buffy was in the center of things—as usual. Who she did see was Xander, who was standing, his arms pinned behind his back and a very sharp sword at his throat.

"I haven't got a weapon. If you kill me now it'll be in cold blood." He was saying loudly. "What about honor, huh! Go ahead and kill me! Go ahead!" The knight holding him grumbled something in agitated response.

"Come on! Give me a challenge!" Spike was shouting. Fallen knights and lost weapons littered the ground at the vampire's feet. Dawn turned just in time to see him struck from behind with the hooves of a rearing horse and Spike collapsed.

Her eyes drawn downwards, Dawn noticed for the first time that Anya was lying among the bodies; blood pooling around her but from what injury the girl had no idea. She felt tears catch behind her eyes again.

It wasn't their fault! They could have walked away any time, but they chose to stay and protect her. Was she worth this? After all, she was never a very good kid to start with, and now she'd learned that she was the key to destroying the world, nothing more.

Through blurred vision Dawn saw a figure that could only have been her sister roll between the legs of a knight, jump up, grab him from behind and spin him backwards over her arm to land face up in the dirt. She stood still for a moment, panting and Dawn got a good look at her. Blood smeared the lower half of Buffy's shirt, evidence of a deep wound. Her sister had been gutted. A knight closed in behind her, sword already tarnished with blood, to finish the job.

Before Dawn knew what she was doing she was speaking. "Stop! Stop it stop it stop it!" She shouted like a child having a temper tantrum. At the sound of her voice the fighting obediently stopped.

Buffy lifted her head, fighting off the wave of dizziness that accompanied motion and saw the worst sight in the world. Her little sister standing in the open, all alone, and much too far away for her to reach before something awful happened.

"Dawn! What're you doing!" Buffy screamed.

"I'm the one you want, and I'm willing to make a deal." Dawn addressed the knights, much to the chagrin of her sister. Buffy tried to take a step forward, but the world spun and a sharp pain shot through her knees and lanced outward from her gut and the Slayer realized she'd fallen to the rough ground.

There was total stillness from the knights, not so from the Scoobies. "Dawn! Get out of here!" Xander shouted and the knight holding him tensed, gripping him tighter.

"We've got this under control!" Buffy knew she sounded very unconvincing from her location in the dirt and Dawn finally turned to meet her gaze. The Slayer could see that her sister's eyes were filled with tears, her face blotchy from crying. Suddenly Buffy found herself having trouble being vexed with her sibling.

Willow had appeared in the doorway, but with Tara hanging off of her there was little she could do. She called Dawn back inside franticly, but the teen ignored her.

"You get me and leave them alone." Dawn continued to speak only to the knights as opposed to her friends, but it didn't matter. Because Buffy's world shattered right then and there. She burst into uncontrollable tears, and her voice came soft and hoarse.

"Don't." She called, though she was almost certain that Dawn couldn't hear. "Please no."

Willow abandoned Tara on the spot and rushed forward to grab her friend but someone caught her from behind. The general had somehow worked his way free and had Willow's arms pinned to her sides with strength that the witch had thought that only Buffy possessed.

Xander struggled again, slamming his heel into the foot of his captor, hoping to manufacture a yelping response. The knight didn't move at all. Not an inch of him so much as shuddered. Again he struggled, putting all the muscle his years of vampire fighting had created to use, but it was no good.

"Done." One of the knights said agreeably. His voice was deep, and rang clearly in the quiet. And with his simple response a god and a group were both condemned.

"Swear you'll let them go." Dawn demanded.

"I swear it." The knight replied. The knight holding Xander removed the sword from his throat, though he didn't release him yet. He was waiting for Dawn to live up to her half of the barging.

"Hey Buff," Dawn called, for the first time talking to her sister. Buffy blinked furiously. She wanted a clear view of her sister, for that moment at least. "I love you."

"Dawn no!" Buffy yelled, finding her voice again but it was too late. There was a single, loud twang and a single loud thwap. Buffy heard it clearly, and it took her a minute to notice that Dawn hadn't been struck by a single arrow. She'd been struck by four. Two through the heart, one to the gut, and one through the throat. The body fell over backwards, resulting in a thud.

The knight dutifully released Xander who turned with an angry snarl and attacked. He clawed and growled more like a cornered animal than a human. Almost casually the knight hit him once, in the back of the head with the hilt of his blade, effectively knocking him unconscious.

Willow, also suddenly free, took two quick steps forward before catching a good glimpse of the corpse. The skin was given an additional pallor by the moonlight, the blood simply a dark lake reflecting the stars. An almost serene beauty was mangled by the arrows protruding upwards, feathered shafts casting grim shadows.

At the sight Willow turned. She tried to swallow the bile rising in her throat but failed and vomited.

Buffy didn't move. She sat as the epitome of stillness. The only motion came from her heaving chest as silent sobs burst forth. The only sound was a desperate chant. "No. No no no!" She cried for time beyond time. Hoping that maybe someone was listening. But no one could hear.

Because in bright contrast the knights had exploded into cheers. There was hollering and clapping and congratulations that by far drowned out the Slayer's sorrow.

Of all the knights there was only one who saw them. Surprisingly it was the general. The man who had insisted so vehemently that the Key must be destroyed. The man who'd tried to convince everyone in that group of children that had captured him to kill "the little girl." For the first time he realized he didn't even know her name. But thinking of the sister he knew that some people cared enough to know it. Some people cared a great deal.

With a shock comparable to a sudden scream after a long silence the general knew why the Key had stepped forward. He knew it with as much conviction as he knew his own name. The Key hadn't sacrificed herself to save the world, she'd sacrificed herself to save her sister.

And the general watched as that same sister wobbled and passed out from blood loss. He watched as the witch walked towards the unconscious boy, roused him, and the two walked towards a woman laying face down in the dirt. The held each other close and moved slowly, as though scared, though they had nothing more to fear from the knights. The hardened war veteran had no family, and no close friends. He would never know what intense grief felt like and for that reason would never understand those experiencing it.

He just watched as the woman sat up carefully, gingerly touched a split in her forehead, winced and looked around. He watched her eyes go from the boy to the witch to the knights, then alight on the Slayer. There they grew wide and moved hesitantly towards the Key. He saw her mouth moving, but no audible sound escaped. Her saw tears glittering on her face, but he'd seen tears before.

The general glanced back towards the Slayer, and found his eyes riveted there. The image of the loud, rude, forceful girl reduced to trembling and tears burned behind his eyelids. And then he knew that as surely as they'd defeated the god, Glory, they'd defeated the Slayer.

The general crossed silently to the magically powered pay phone and called for an ambulance. Afterwards he rounded up his men and left. And all he could think was that long after the cheers of his men faded away to nothing, those children would still be crying.

Had he told anyone, they probably would have expected the general to regret. But he did not. There was no point to it and there were much better uses for his energies.

Buffy awoke in the hospital twelve days later, surrounded by teary-eyed friends who all smiled with obvious relief.

She regretted everything.

**Cat: The End! Now be a very very very nice person and review. I accept flames. **


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